Senior Confessions of A Small Town High School.
This is a blog by a group of teens completing their final year of high school.
Read for true stories, advice, occasional rants, and questions that only high school students ask, with answers to all of them.

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Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Happy New Year!

Whelp, it's almost 2016. Natalie and I are scrambling to finish those early-application college things because money is hard. Can you tell we're busy yet?

Something that took me a really long time to figure out was how to "describe myself" in 600 words. Dear colleges, we're scared and not all of us are fit to be authors. Dear soon-to-be applicants, don't freak out, admissions counselors understand. So, I'll start with CommonApp.

With CommonApp, it's kinda nice to not have to re-write a thousand essays for super similar prompts. But a big key for me was choosing which prompt. I even made a document on google docs and tried to write an essay for all of them and then pick the best one. In the end, I didn't use what I thought I would. I'll post the essay later, when I'm sure I'm going somewhere, for an example. The key to it all is just to know how you write. Assuming you understand how english works, go from there. Not everyone can make those super artsy essays that are all, "The house stands majestically on the hill..." Heaven knows I couldn't.

What a college wants from you is to see who you are and how open you can be about your life. You're not Einstein -- if you are, great. Don't judge the rest of us. But for the rest of us, the admissions counselors are real people too. And it breaks their hearts that they can't let everyone go to their dream schools. C'est la vie. Just say (in a more formal and constructed way) "Hey, I'm a prospective student and I want this and here's who the heck I am and I'm awesome." If that means writing a well-written essay about bacon, do it. Just make it you.

Now, I'm probably different from most of you in that I reeeeally want to go to a school for art. That means portfolio, portfolio, port-frickin-folio. I'm applying to 4 colleges. Each one of them has a place to upload, describe, and show off how awesome I am. And I hope I can give some tips as to how to be awesome (or at least look it and pretend) to you. :)

1. Plan your Pictures.
You know what's good. You know what's you, and what's just another sketchbook assignment or boring project. If you're taking art in school, make it yours. If that annoys your teacher and they don't try to work with you, how crappy of them. Also, if you're any good at enhancing photos on any platform, do it. It's not cheating to show that you know how to make your work shine. Don't plagiarize - that's stupid. just bump up the contrast, sharpen, fix the lighting, make it look like a scan rather than a crappy photo. Display is key.

2. Get ready to write.
Yes, you get to write just about as much as a math major on finals week. Each of your pieces will need to be described. What inspired it? Don't you dare say "I made this cause teacher person said so." I will personally find you and smack you upside the head. Was the assignment to draw something with lines? It's a study in lines. Describe it like that. act like everything you put in there is fantastic because you planned for it to be.

3. Have patience.
While it sounds extremely redundant to be told to have patience after you spent years- yes YEARS - trying to make that stupid pen and ink piece, just breathe. If you're anything like me, you're gonna be freaking out. Grab some tea, play some music of choice that relaxes and focuses you, turn off your phone, stay off of social media, and for an hour, just work on uploading pictures. Do that every day as soon as you get the Slideroom link and you're set!

I'm off to finish up portfolios! Anyone visiting this page, feel free to shoot us questions! It may be a little while, but we will get back to you!

Also, senior year is the actual worst for relationships. If you're like me, you'll just be avoiding people for as long as possible. So far anyone I wasn't friends with before this year hasn't been the best friend. Senior year changes people. Stay strong, friends.